Teacher Guide

King Lear Lesson Plan

Relationship to Other Books

Students of King Lear may benefit from reading other Shakespearean tragedies such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. They also may want to read other account of the Leir of Britain legend on which it is based (most notably that of Geoffrey of Monmouth).

The plot of King Lear has been adapted numerous times across various media and settings. For example, look at Akira Kurosawa's epic film Ran, which places the story of Lear in feudal Japan. Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acresgives a feminist retelling of the story (told from Goneril and Regan's point of view) and sets it on a twentieth-century American farm. Other retellings of Lear include Christopher Moore's...

Edmund, the bastard son to Gloucester, is resentful of his illegitimacy and having a cruel drive for power, he plots against his brother and father and succeeds. Once Cornwall dies, he gains even more power and Goneril and Regan vie for his hand....